The Dreams In Which I'm Dying
by Chandra
Summary: The prequel to Touched. How do you best destroy the one that took everything from you?
1. I

Short chapter, but am trying to get a feel for the story. Those of you who don't like alternate parings will most likely not like this one. This is going to be the prequel as well as the end to Touched.  
  
""-Speech ~~-Thoughts ***-Flashback  
  
The Dreams In Which I'm Dying  
  
Brown eyes met their own reflection, dark depths as emotionless as the glass that mirrored them. Pale hands, skin a shade shy of an albino's, guided the brush in deliberate strokes through black and red-layered hair. With a smirk, the merest tilt of dark red lips, she brushed mouth length strands of red, Vampire Red they called it, back from a childish face. Short strands mingled with their elbow length companions, silent witnesses to the clatter of plastic upon tile as the brush fell from small hands. Brown filtered into black as eyes widened, their light dimming with recollection.  
  
*** White fell across her vision, coming to rest upon antique windows. Below in the City's streets halos formed around electric-light angels, waiting patiently upon metal stands for mornings light. In the chill air of winter's first snow, breathed words became solid as she watched their exchange. Her sister stood pausing on the buildings steps, snow mingling with black hair giving her an ethereal elegance. And below, on the sidewalk, vermilion hair stained the night. ~Kenshin and Tomoe~ she though admitting that, although the hardly approved of her sister's choice, they looked well together. Her mind caught and held the though as the first explosion broke the night. Snow caught the wind like feathers as she watched her sister fall, icy crystals floating through the air in a desperate attempt to escape the melting stain that spread out behind black hair. She watched amber eyes flash searching for danger as he fell into the pure white, searching franticly for life. ***  
  
A single tear fell slowly, mixing with black liner and red shadow alike as it streaked down her powdered cheek. The single streak remained, drying in the night as she turned from the mirror. High shoes moved over the carpet, fingers playing at the dark red velvet that covered her. The dress was a simple one, sleeveless velvet with a high slit in the right side. They had never worn black to a funeral, she wore red and her lost sister wore pale blue. Their colors as different as their stature, as different as their families, for blood kin they never were. Children of a lost time, the ones that usually fell unnoticed through the cracks had found each other. Tomoe's elegant mannerisms and Chandra's willful command had made a perfect mix. Brown eyes closed, a second tear falling to mirror the first, leaving delicately streaked makeup to run below her eyes. Fingers twisted a silver Tragedy mask on her finger made broken by the loss of its sister, Comedy.  
  
Steps lead through the rooms, leaving her alone at the door, alone with her duty to carry on in the end. Then the door was open and amber eyes met hers, waiting patiently with their emotions carefully walled away behind an empty front, much like her own. But hate was more powerful than sorrow, and brown eyes darkened as she fought not to let him hear the voices in her head. That would change everything. In silence they walked down hallways and steps, meeting the unnatural light that desecrated sorrow's spirit.  
  
Blackout, the club they had built together, the place they had called home when the world fell apart, and now the most popular club in The City. And tonight it was closed, and waiting for the night's ceremony that would bid farewell to her sister. Tomoe's family had fought to have her body displayed at their church, to be buried with the family's plot, but that had never been her wish. They had planned this long ago, knowing that once the Oni became part of their lives that death would be an end result. But Tomoe should have lived, Chandra wanted to scream against fate and deny the truth as though wishing it would make it so. She took all the risks, keeping Tomoe in the shadows and safe. She was the one that should now lie in the glass coffin they were slowly approaching, the one who should be adorned with nightshade in death.  
  
Black took over brown depths filtering through, as whispered words became screams. The bullet was meant for him, eyes focused on vermilion hair, she had found that much out when she had tracked down the killed. But now they were there, and she stood over the coffin, tears falling from emotionless black eyes to hit the flawless glass. She felt the words rise in her throat, not knowing their substance. It was the speech they used, tailored for each new loss, but still the same, their good bye. In front of her she watched faces, most of them the family that had been found and created over the years. With each face she remembered who they were, and were they had come from, until finally her eyes settled upon Kenshin. He wasn't listening either; he knew the words too well to bother hearing them again. Instead his eyes were distant, lost in the memories of a much happier time. The last words fell, and she knew it was over, steps leading her down the steps as silence filled the empty walls. Words were not to be her sister's tribute, revenge was. . .for there could be no redemption. 


	2. II

Dirt, black and fresh coated flawless glass as another love was committed to the graves embrace. Above tearless brown eyes turned black watched the shovel rise and fall, each movement making reality more painful that it should have been. Another fall of dirt and she was back in the apartment they had shared, back in the crammed one-bedroom they had called home. Back fighting to make ends meet, and selling a little piece of her soul daily until there was nothing left for her.  
  
"Sara. . ?" A voice too familiar to be forgotten shattered the memories.  
  
Slowly she turned, black hued eyes empty as the pain with in her sealed itself to emptiness. Each word coming with the practiced tone of feigned interest, a dark edge lining her meanings. "No, I am not. She died years ago, my name is Chandra."  
  
The woman blinked, taken back by the chill in her daughter's voice. Brown hair, bleached to hide approaching age, fell around a wrinkling face; brown eyes watched the girl who it had taken three years to find. "Sara, stop with the games. It's time for you to come home, I won't allow you to continue to live like this."  
  
There it was again, that annoying name that she had cast off, had abandoned with the dingy apartment and her former life. "You won't allow me. . ." The words trailed into a thick laughter, its tones edged with newfound sorrow and past wounds. "It has been a long time since you have 'allowed' me to do anything, let along 'live like this.' Where were your precious allowances when this started, when you told me to get out?" Rage boiled in uncontrolled voices underneath the hurting ice that had become her voice. "You have no power here, you have no idea what I have become, what we are now. The girl you speak of died in a one-bedroom apartment in the slums. Died fighting to make things right as a piece of herself was lost everyday to the camera's flash so that men like her stepfather could dream of fucking her. I am Chandra, search yourself if you want to find your daughter, because all that's left is memory." With a slight nod she walked past the woman, careful that not the slightest touch pass between them. Dark eyes didn't see the age that lined the woman's face, didn't see the tears form her mother's eyes that mixed with the graves dirt. But it wouldn't have mattered anyway, and the words in her head whispered with their demand of pain's payment.  
  
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Candles flickered, their unsure light giving the room a half lit darkness. Eyes stared out through glass, watching the city move beneath her as her mind relived memories.  
  
*** "Get out! You would dare attack your family!"  
  
Chandra stood the metal bat falling from her hands, the sound almost deafening as it's handle clipped a piece from her mother's precious slate floor. Tennis shoes, their white stained with a thick red, shifted as the rage died. At her feet the thick red pooled, staining shoes and slate a like.  
  
"What the hell were you thinking, what have you done!" Brown eyes stared, their depths widen with horror as her mind threatened to identify the huddled shape beside her daughter. A low groan of pain came from the huddled mass on the floor, a heavy hand trying to push against the slate to rise.  
  
"I wanted to see if he would bleed, if he would hurt like he made me." The words were singsong, a child's voice coming from a teenage body. Eyes met her mother's, brown almost red in the light. "Seems he does. . ." The voice trailed off, eyes darkening into black as even her subtle movements took on a practiced edge. "You let him do this, you wouldn't listen. . .didn't care." Swollen lips spat her own blood onto the slate.  
  
"Get out." The sentence echoed off of plaster walls as the door slammed, a lone figure walking into the afternoon's light. ***  
  
Breath burned into denied lungs as she turned away from the window, pushing the past back to its realm of memory. Unthinking she left curtained rooms and candles to burn their life away, for the sanctity of empty hallways in search of similar torment to help her pass the night.  
  
Steel glinted in a candles light, the flickering flame fighting to defend against the night's dark hours. Fingers held a well-worn handle, their tips resting comfortably on the blades base the same way one would hold a lover's hand. Well-sharpened metal pressed against pale skin, nothing, a thin line of crimson began to run from the wound, still nothing.  
  
As if timed the candle sputtered, its flame dangerously close to a pool of melted wax, and amber eyes opened. Their strained pupils fought against the numbing alcohol to focus on the wet line that marred his skin. Still the action did not compute, a series of events viewed as separate incidents and never connected in an absinthe-poisoned soul. There was no pain, no sense of steel breaching flesh, just the emptiness. Red filled his vision, its edges blurring with tears that would never fall to earth.  
  
*** A sound filled his ears, louder than any shot could have been, the earth rendering sound of his judgment. Instinct had taken him and amber searched for the gunman, but winter's snow hid details. Winters pure snow, and the red was staining the snow, red filling up the glass coffin (now buried), red drowning her as blood filled her lungs. Red covering him as he sought to fight death's coming, red pouring form the bullet's wound as he tried to stop the flow, stop the red from staining her beautiful blue dress. Red dripped from his arm as he carried her inside, and red rested behind brown eyes as Chandra looked up at him from her sister's body. ***  
  
The candle died, surrendering its light to 4am darkness. Darkness that moved and smelled of a musky sweetness, in that darkness his mind surrendered.  
  
"Tomoe. . ." he whispered, the blade falling from his grasp.  
  
"No." Came the husky response, thick like the blood he felt cooling on his arm. Even in the darkness he could feel red shadowed eyes on him, the sensation stronger than the fingertips that brushed his self-inflicted wound. "Such a waste." Her breath washed in tactile tones over broken skin as the merest touch of her lips brushed its surface.  
  
"Chandra." His voice was harder now, cold and guarded, as her words came back to him 'there can be no redemption.' Cold tones and eyes black like the grave's dirt came back to him. "Don't do this-" The words began with the warning of growling thunder and ended as the air left his lungs. Lips played at the cut, her tongue slipping along its length to draw the blood out. Then there was pain, so carefully exquisite that it rode his faltering mind. Amber eyes closed, fingers knotting in a fall of hair and carpet, inside the warm beginnings of desire filled the emptiness with self- loathing and guilt. Teeth met wounded flesh; manipulating its nerves until there was only the haze he slowly sunk into, flooding his senses.  
  
Fingertips ran through remembered black hair, tracing along soft creamy skin. It didn't matter that Tomoe smelled of white plumbs and not musk, or that she had never adopted any of her sister's more unusual tastes, such as the one he now experienced. His mind filled in the spaces and his heart didn't question, but instead happily lost itself to memory. Somewhere in the dark recesses of his soul the beast with in rejoiced at her ministrations, the thin trail of painful delight leading it out from a long hibernation.  
  
Chandra smiled, her lips curling around broken skin as thick liquid filled her mouth. Almost sweet, metallic and greasy; like sucking on an old penny. She felt his body resist before finding shelter in fantasy. It didn't matter that he would never see her behind his eyes, and never truly be feeling her instead of his memories. For there was more inside her than a vengeful child, a morning woman, and the cold black-eyed violence of her fury. There was, among others, the masochistic broken soul that enjoyed each click of the camera. The temptation to push him, to coax the beast out, was a sweet lure. To have a lover whose darkness would silence her mind, and eat away the world. But not tonight, rationalism chided the hunger that raged with in her; it was too soon, and his control was still too strong. Force of will broke contact, hair slipping from unseen hands as she rose. The whispers that echoed through her mind and ears were constant companions as she left the room.  
  
"Tomoe. . ." a pleading voice followed her, it's tones lethargic with the weight of absinthe, a renewed sensation of loss plaguing its tones. "No, dear Kenshin. . .your fire destroyed Tomoe." The whisper fell heavily, echoes filling the hall with malice as heated brown once filled with invitation and offer slid into black.  
  
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"Chandra." Lips spat her name as heavy doors slammed shut behind the beast. Amber eyes, the first tints of red mixing with their yellow gleam settled upon her.  
  
Deep brown eyes, shadowed with heavy black, looked up from a neat assortment of papers, photographs attached to some of them. For a moment silence waited as she suck into his fury. He was beautiful; the controlled violence or a gleaming-eyed predator bound to edged grace, and looking at him she felt like a hunted thing caught in the dance of the hunt and death. Black suited him well, the black pants and collarless dress shirt a brilliant contrast to amber eyes and blood colored hair. Breathing deeply, the scent of vanilla that floated from him made potent by the anger that stretched and tightened alabaster covered muscle. Carefully she stood, fighting to let her eyes linger, the black robes of her priest's garb shifting with the movement as heavily shadowed eyes met his.  
  
"Ah, Kenshin. . ." Her voice trailed, the drawn out words would only push him further into anger. " I have a new assignment for you." Practiced words found voice, her S's slurring slightly and T's cut short with a distinctly created accent.  
  
"Cut the shit. I'm not here for your 'assignments.'" Kenshin hissed, lips sneering at her. "I am here to remind you that I will not be one of your toys."  
  
Laughter came slowly, boiling from red lips and falling slickly over the Cossack. "No, Kenshin, that is something you shall never be." 


	3. Note

Well I'm going to be putting this story on hold for a little while to finish up "Fade" and something else that has been sitting in the back of my head recently. I promise that I will finish this, just not right away...So don't get too disappointed, and keep an eye out for my new creation. Am going to see how I can do at writing a fic set during the revolution.  
  
Chandra 


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